| Show A CHICKENS DEVOTION the bird starves itself after its masters departure from home stories of dogs choso whoso devotion to their masters was so great that they abandoned themselves to starvation after their masters death are not rare but few would have expected a chicken to prove capable of bucl an attachment but the moro animals in ge are studied the clearer it becomes that even the humblest of them have capacities aae our own A correspondent of la nature a french scientific journal relates that his young of the houdan variety every morning in coming out of the house the young man brought with him a handful of crumbs or of grain or of something else that chickens ake and little by lettla his houdan pet acquired abo habit of following him about the place in a grove near the house there was a bench when the young man reached this bench he invariably seated himself and the favl jumping up by his side picked the food from his hand and wai petted by being stroked on the head and back this had gone on for bite a long time when the young man left home to go to college for the first day or two the chicken seemed not to be inconsolable over the loss of its friend but took its food with the rest after a few days however tho fowl seemed to become aware that its friend was not coming back and it was seized all at once with an unconquerable melancholy it lingered moraine after morning under the windows of the house as if waiting for its master to come out finally it retook betook itself to the bench where its master had been accustomed to feed it and there it remained its head under its wing almost motionless day and night it was useless to try to tempt it with food the chicken refused to look up when the most tempting handfuls of grain or dough were thrown down before it its eyelids were closed and ais intention to die ol 01 hunger was so evident that it was deemed merciful to kill it |
